THE BIG PICTURE: You don't need artificial gimmicks to shake up the field to present an exciting race. A good race track can do the trick.

TRACK: Did you see all that "clag" offline? You could collect all of it and build a whole new tire with it.

EVENT: We sure hope all those empty grandstands in the back of the course are used during other weekends with different configurations of the track. Otherwise, why leave them up and make the event look half barren?

START: Ricciardo brings back Red Bull memories, "madman" Kvyat pushes Vettel into his teammate, and Hamilton wishes he started from the pit lane.

ROSBERG: The last nine times a driver won the first three races, he won the World Championship. But Nico's is right when he says they didn't have Lewis Hamilton as their teammate. Nor did they have such a long season.

HAMILTON: This time, Lewis didn't do anything to cause his troubles. But, he still had troubles.

FERRARI: Obviously, rule number one is never take out your teammate. But, sometimes shit happens and it's no one's fault when teammates collide. But don't have it happen in the particular race your CEO flies in to see!

KVYAT: Hey, if you take out another team, who cares, right? But ultimately, the commotion Daniil started caused his teammate to lose a podium spot.

RICCIARDO: Despite finishing behind his teammate, no doubt Daniel was the star of the race.

RED BULL: This race proves once and for all their chassis is one of the best. It just needs some more horsepower.

MASSA: Beat Bottas again.

BOTTAS: But Valtteri did run fast all weekend.

FORCE INDIA: Is it time to finally admit that Perez is indeed the number one driver on this team?

HULKENBERG: But somehow, Nico who was off pace all weekend, got the fastest lap of the race.

GROSJEAN: Not the birthday present he was hoping for.

GUTIERREZ: Hey, Esteban finished. And, ahead of his teammate. Not that he out drove him.

HAAS F1: Back to reality. Or, perhaps not.

WEHRLEIN: Those streams in a dip will catch you out every time...

PALMER: When you complete the whole race and get beat by Haryanto, well ... we got nothing.

MCLAREN: They were looking so good over the weekend. To think, the only point McLaren has scored so far this year was by Stoffel Vandoorne.

HONDA: You have to admit they have improved considerably this season. The problem is, that still puts them way behind so many other cars...

FIA: How many FIA officials does it take to change back to an old working light bulb? None. They have to be browbeaten into doing it and even then they won't admit the new light bulb was burnt out.

WORD OF THE WEEKEND: Madman.

STAT OF THE WEEKEND: 0 -- The number of retirements in the race which is especially amazing considering what went on during the first lap.

HISTORICAL STAT OF THE WEEKEND: If you don't count the Indy 500, the first driver to win the first three races and then the World Championship was Alberto Ascari in 1953. He took victories at the Argentine, Dutch, and Belgian GPs in a Ferrari.

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND: Daniil Kvyat, either trying to be tough or doesn't get it, said to Vettel after the race, "I am on the podium, so it's OK, you are on the podium."

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND RUNNERUP: Gene Haas bitch slapping all the whiners complaining about Haas F1, "I think a lot of the teams at the back really don't understand what competition is. We never came into this thing to run at the back. We want to compete, and that's what we're going to do. If people don't like that then that's their problem. We are here racing."

SCHEDULE: Russia is moved from the Fall to the Spring. But, we'll still be stuck with seeing Putin grabbing face time with the drivers...